“Please, yes, Your Majesty, see to that,” I said, bowing deeply as she waved Le’ral over before heading off with her ever-present guard. Prescott stood behind me humming. The few staff brave enough to come outside kept a wide berth from me and my protector. When I turned, Le’ral was smiling gently at me. With a wave of his hand that set his half cape fluttering, he called to us.
“If you are ready to freshen up?”
I nodded as the sun warmed my head. “Then follow me, please.”
We began the climb into Avolire. The western door was large, solid wood, overseen by two guards who stared up at Prescott with worry in their eyes. “This evening, after your meeting with the king and a light repast in the king’s solar, I can give you the grand tour of Avolire if you so wish?”
“Please, that would be…” I paused as we exited a slim hall that led to a magnificent spiral staircase of solid white stone so highly buffed it made my eyes water. “Amazing,” I whispered as a pair of young boys stopped in their tracks, buckets of ash in their hands, to gawk at me and Prescott before darting off like frightened hares.
“Shiny,” Prescott said from behind.
“The queen’s postern was used for many seasons by the second queen of Melowynn, Her Majesty Lillith Eldenshar, wife of Flinar Eldenshar. She insisted on having an entrance for herself and her ladies’ maids to avoid the glare of the sun on the main entrance. You may view Queen Eldenshar in the gallery of queens at the top of the stairs if you wish. It sits next to the newly redecorated Stillcloud gallery.”
Our boots rang out as we climbed the stairs, golden sconces on the walls holding newly lit candles lighting the way, even though the sun poured through a window of stained glass the size of my sloop. An elven maid facing a dragon was depicted on the colorful panes casting us in blue, green, and red as we moved higher up the stairs. “The maiden depicted in the window is the fifth queen of Melowynn, the last of our people to speak with dragons. Or, well, so it was thought. Now that young Beiro has returned to Celear with a wyrmling bonded to him, we may have to rethink a good many things.”
“What will you do with a full-grown ice dragon?” I asked, as it seemed pertinent.
“That, my brave captain, is a question evenIhave no answer to. Seems your fine vessel has brought many a surprise to our shores.” He glanced back, dark eyes touching on me, before his attention returned to the tale of the maid and the dark blue dragon. Once we reached the riser, I paused, my gaze roaming down vast corridors lined with doors, open galleys where the warm sea winds blew in to rustle thick tapestries. “Your suites are down this way.”
“You mentioned a Stillcloud gallery?” Why this sudden need to see old oils of wrinkled elven women and men dripping in gold and jewels had overcome me, I couldn’t say, but I needed to see if she was in there.
“Yes, right down here next to the queen’s sitting room.” The grand advisor motioned to a doorway four doors down.
I turned to look at Prescott, who still carried my trunk on one shoulder but was poking his finger at a tapestry showing a pack of hunting dogs chasing a rabbit.
“Dog, dog,” he was whispering. He had learned a lot from his picture books.
“Prescott, I’m going to go into that room,” I said while pointing to the doorway Le’ral had mentioned. “I’ll be just a moment. Sit here on my trunk to make sure it doesn’t open.”
He nodded, sat, and returned to naming the beasts on the tapestry. I patted his massive shoulder and joined Le’ral.
“Is leaving him alone wise?” Le’ral asked when we reached the Stillcloud gallery’s double doors, his gaze leaving me to settle on Prescott.
“He’ll be fine. He won’t move from that trunk until I tell him to.”
“Ah, then let us enjoy the oils.” He opened the door with flair before stepping into a room filled with paintings hanging on stone walls, frames of rich wood with small gold nameplates adorning each oil. The drapes on the dozen or so tall windowswere open, allowing ample sun to light the room, and yet dozens of candles burned. Small tables with flowers in glass urns sat beneath each portrait. The castle must pay a fortune just to the local florists to keep this one room in bright blooms. “If we start here at the beginning, we find the first—”
“Is there a portrait of King Aelir’s mother?”
I’d not call her my mother. There was no proof of maternity yet and thinking that I might be a son of the crown made me feel hot and cold at the same time.
“Yes, down here, next to a recent painting of Queen Raewyn that was just completed last autumn. The royal portraitist is a local resident, quite skilled in capturing the vibrancy of his…”
Whatever he was saying drifted off like fog on a warming sea as I skipped over oil after oil of elven women with long noses and pinched faces to find her. My boots seemed to be mired in hot tar beneath her likeness. My ears began to ring, my mouth to dry, my heart to pound as I stared up at a woman who looked so like me I felt dizzy. I’d looked at myself in a mirror more than enough times to know my face well. Perhaps I was a little vain. Perhaps more than a little. But I knew my cheeks, my eyes, my lips. I knew the formation of my nose and jaw. I spread my legs, as if I were sailing wild seas, to steady myself.
“She is lovely, is she not? Lady Gialar was always thought to be one of the most beautiful elves to grace our lands.” I tore my sight from the oil to stare dry-eyed at Le’ral. He was watching me intently. “That is Aelir’s mother. You can also view his father, Lord Tendarl’s likeness, hanging on the opposing wall.”
I said nothing to that. Did I care about the man who had sired Aelir? No, not particularly. Not yet. Perhaps if the testing proved…whatever it might prove. Also, I found it hard to keep my sight from drifting from Lady Stillcloud. Deep down, where my doubts and fears resided, I had been praying to the sea witches that this supposed tale of kidnapped infants andprivateers was bull-cockery. Even with the comments about how I looked like the king, I’d shuttled any real possibility to the side as best as I could. Now, though—now I saw her face—the whispered mentions now struck a much more powerful blow.
“Captain? You look wan. Would you like me to open a window?” Le’ral’s concerned voice slipped through the rising tide of panic in my breast. I ripped my sight from the portrait to stare at the handsome man studying me with worry.
“No, I…” I forced myself to stop being a fool. Resemblances proved nothing. A strong likeness to another did not mean shared blood was present. “Thank you. I’m fine.” I seemed to be saying that frequently. Hyla was known to comment that the more you insisted you were well, the less likely it was that you were. I should have brought her with me as well as Prescott. But her eyes on the Cloud’s Shame was more important than my jittery belly. “She’s quite lovely, yes, so very blonde.”
“Yes, all the Stillclouds are fair-haired. Umeris was so appealing to the eyes, so flaxen-haired as a young elf that many thought his tresses were tinted with silver.” He spoke with some reverence that sat on my tongue like a rotted egg.
“Umeris, the king’s grandfather. The one who didn’t want a half-human child bringing a loss of face to the Stillcloud name, so he sent the child off with a woman shamed to suckle him as he was turned over to privateers. That’s the man you speak of? The flaxen-haired, handsome noble who cast his grandchild into the midden heap as if the babe were soiled underclothes.”
“Supposedly cast his grandchild aside,” he gently reminded me. “We have yet to fully substantiate the woman’s story or complete your blood work.”
